


Chasing Rainbows

by Lily (alyelle)



Category: Fringe
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-29
Updated: 2012-04-29
Packaged: 2017-11-04 12:16:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/393744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alyelle/pseuds/Lily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The missing scene from 4x20.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chasing Rainbows

**Author's Note:**

> Basically my consolation technique after that episode. Also archived at [Dreamwidth](http://stowaway.dreamwidth.org/24346.html).

_6:02pm_

“Here.”

Olivia turns from the window to see Peter holding out a cup of coffee. Her fingers wrap around the china mug automatically; it feels oddly small, fragile, in her hand. The warmth that leaches into her is neither comforting nor reassuring.

“Thanks.”

She looks back to the glass briefly. The sky is darkening. Thick clouds swamp in on one another. The sun sinks a degree lower on the horizon.

“When I was a kid, I used to wait for storms.” Her eyes drift restlessly between Peter and the cup she holds. “I’d sit in my room and wait by the window, for the light to come back once the thunder and lightning had gone.”

She sips the coffee. It tastes of bitterness, and dry brown earth. Of regrets.

“She told me they don’t have rainbows over there anymore. Not for twenty years. Can you imagine? I was ten, and watching for storms, and her world was falling apart.”

Peter takes the cup from her gently, setting it down on the coffee table even as he slips an arm around her waist.

“We did the right thing, didn’t we?” Olivia asks, inching closer into him. He’s warm and real in a way the coffee wasn’t. He looks down at her with eyes that are impossibly sad.

“I don’t think there was a right thing, ‘Livia. Not this time.”

“No,” she whispers, and buries her sobs into his chest as the sky opens above them.

-

_6:02pm_

“Here.”

Lincoln straightens up from where he leans on the balcony railing, taking the proffered cup with a wry grin.

“I miss coffee already.”

Olivia smiles, wrinkling her nose. “You’ll get used to tea.”

She leans back against the brickwork, sipping from her own cup. Her eyes search the muted sunset; there are clouds building fast around it. It will rain tonight.

“I used to think I was nothing like her,” she says thoughtfully. “When I first went over there. But when we left today – she could have been me, if things had been different. I could have been her.”

“There but for the grace of God.”

“Or science.” She sets the tea cup down. “She used to watch rainbows as a kid. I know she did, because I did too. They disappeared twenty years ago. Too many changes in our atmosphere. You know what she told me today? ‘Keep looking up.’ She has to believe in hope.”

“Like you,” Lincoln says softly. 

“Yeah.” She grins sheepishly, leaning on the railing beside him. “Like me.”

A long, low rumble of thunder sounds in the distance. They look up, together, as the first fat drops of rain fall like tears, and a faint band of colour begins to shimmer against the black bellies of the clouds.


End file.
